


The Stars Below

by semi_sweet



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Fantasy, Getting to Know Each Other, Language Barrier, Loss, Love, M/M, Patrick is grumpy, Pete is...., Sci-Fi, Well - Freeform, but i cannot hear them, fairytale, for i do not care, pls read it i'm quite proud of this even if it's messy, seriously, shaky science, the science community is screaming at me, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 23:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18670687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semi_sweet/pseuds/semi_sweet
Summary: Patrick needs fixing.





	The Stars Below

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO THIS IS VERY LAST-MINUTE MY TUMBLR IS SCMI-SWEET SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG THANKS HOPE YOU ENJOY

Some people are pit-stops. No, by pit-stop, I don’t mean the people we speak to once and never again, who leave no impact on your life whatsoever, like the lady you bumped into in the street this morning trying to squeeze past because she was walking in such a manner that made an unobtrusive passing impossible. Neither do i mean the people you may speak with over and over again, yet never exchange a meaningful word with, or even engage in conversation past the mandatory “Hello” and “No, I don’t need a bag, thank you”. Neither do I mean the people who leave a mark in your life, but in a far from positive way, maybe a broken mug, a stain on your carpet, a car on your memory. After all, pit-stops are supposed to fix you up, are they not? A precious few moments spent in the right company and, who knows, your life may will be changed forever. Not for worse, but for better.

Even if it’s not always initially obvious.

  
  
  
  


Patrick’s eyes strain in the low light bleeding through the mirky water. This is one of his worse habits, pushing his body to the limits of what it’s supposed to endure all for the sake of something he himself sometimes struggles to see a point in. 

However, maybe that’s just the beauty of it, the pointlessness, the utter and complete irrelevance, the creation of something for no other reason than pleasure, no matter how useless it may be, no matter how unprofitable. He hopes so, anyway, has to hope. He’d be out of a job if the world decided it had no further interest in the pointless.

There is a beauty to it, for sure, he thinks to himself after the crisp snap of the shutter rattles around the room, after the glaring flash of artificial lightning temporarily blinds him, an irony, he finds, that to truly see, he must first be blinded. The tiny screen between his hands is never enough to showcase what he just captured, an unreliable narrator of the decontextualized reality he’s just trapped on a memory card. But it is enough to inform him that the fishtank appears like a bottomless ocean if the periphery is removed, and the figure suspended beyond seems to be drowning in endless green. 

Liar as though it may be, the tiny screen is enough to enrapture him, keep his attention in the same cage at the frozen moment, so that when his shirt is twisted by two inked arms wrapping around him, he leaps out of his skin, his head smacking against the jaw of the man behind him. 

“Jesus Christ, Pete!” His camera, unlike his heart and possibly his wits, remains unharmed. Pete merely chuckles in his ear. 

“How are they? Can I see?” He asks, with a press of his lips to that spot just below Patrick’s jaw that always makes him cave. It’s not  _ fair _ that Pete gets to play him so easily. 

“No,” quickly, he snakes his way out of the vice-like grip on his ribs and aims for the desktop half-buried under a pile of filters, lenses and the occasional manual.

It takes a little over a minute for him to be able to pull up the RAW images on his screen, a feat of modern tech and his dear husband’s basic knowledge of computer systems, just enough to rig up just what he needs for his work (and Pete’s vice of online computer games). He flicks through them, skimming the folder for one that catches his eye for a test edit. Just to figure out what he’s doing with it.

“Why don’t you just leave it as it is?” He becomes very aware of the body heat suddenly close to his back, almost encapsulating him from behind. 

“Because you can’t actually see anything until I bring my exposure up. Also it could to with more blue in the highlights and more green in the shadow. And, Peter, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of my work, like.... ever for what it is beyond a photo of a guy, but this isn’t my colour palette. Not yet. There’s too much black, too many dull tones, I need it to… to pop.” His brow draws into a frown as Photoshop’s RAW editor jumps out at him. 

“There, see? Better.”

“Hmm,” Pete leans over him, bent over so his elbows are resting on the hard, dark wood of the desk, and Patrick point-blank refuses to let the muscles on his back distract him from his work. “I liked it gloomy…” 

“Of course you did, you’ve not grown out of the emo phase, I don’t care how loudly you argue against it. Also, you do know the shoot’s over, right? Like, you can put clothes on.” Pete, the bastard, turns to him with large, brown puppy-dog eyes and a pout that could melt butter. He then, with an elegance never granted to Patrick, even in his finest moments, somehow manages to twist his body between the dark wood of the desk and the bright white of Patrick’ now-crinkled shirt. Pete makes him feel like he’s in a movie.

It’s why he married him in the first place, no matter how mundane or dull life may seem, there is a magic to Pete that bleeds into everything he touches. A childlike wonder never lost, even in his thirties, he remains unjaded, optimistic. Dragged through hell by the scruff of his neck he emerged, against all odds, as a rock, a monument of reliability and comfort and loyalty. And draped ofer Patrick’s lap, arm around his shoulder, boyishly cheeky grin on his face, like he was about to his him square in the face with the biggest snowball ever produced this side of Lake Michigan, Patrick felt caught in a romance, set in the 50s, maybe, or the 40s, framed by dim lighting and warm browns, at a time when society was barely in the YA section of the library, everything was… set around them. Everything was for them. Only the ending would be happier than it could ever be for two gay men in the 40s. 

Patrick can’t let that distract him. He has pointlessness to pursue, a calling given to him by nobody other than himself, given his conviction in the absence of and godlike being. He squints past Pete in annoyance, trying to focus on adjusting the levels just right, toying with a film-like effect. Pete, meanwhile, just wriggles in his lap, pawing at his face like a puppy desperate for attention, just a crumb of it. 

“Come on, posed around all pretty for you, just be with me for a second instead of your dumb computer.” The sole reaction this elicits from Patrick is a roll of his still-straining eyes, sore in their sockets now and definitely on Pete’s team. 

He wants to do this, wants to finish whilst he’s still in the setting, the moment. Before it runs from his hands and he can’t grasp it any longer.

“How about,” he mutters as he opens the Hue/Saturation sliders, “you make yourself useful and… and pop out to get a frozen pizza or something and then, when you get back, I’ll… might be done and yanno…” He barely notices Pete’s tut, barely even notices him sliding off his lap, drowning deep in the ocean on his screen. Pete looks like he’s falling on it, back curved beautifully, arms and legs stretching out above him, the harness that held him in place barely visible even without being airbrushed. Maybe, just maybe, this one could be it. Or the next? Maybe the next? Surely, one day, someday, soon, hopefully, somebody would see them, his small pieces of art, the perfect moment captured in time, and tell him, yes, this was it. This was his breakthrough. 

“Anything else you want whilst I’m out? Milk? Boxers? A stripper, maybe?” 

Engrossed in the tone curve, Patrick simply throws back a noncommital noise that might get lost between the books and frames piled high in the small office. 

He’ not sure what time it is when Pete leaves, a glance at the clock that might even have changed his life. He barely registers the bang of the front door, it always needs a little persuasion. He does, however, remember clearly the time he next sees him. The way he looks so at peace, so unbothered by the world’s torments, so very different to how Patrick, in that moment and most moments since, feels. 

He never finishes editing the photos.

  
  


Sometimes, we as humans forget that there is an entire world surrounding us outside our cities and towns. Out there, beyond the boundaries of our own comfort, the world turns on, not unbothered by us, not in the slightest, but very much forgotten by most. Where humans still live the way nature intended and creatures we may never have laid eyes on roam freely. Perhaps entire species come and go without our noticing. Forests filled with bugs and insects still unnamed, oceans inhabited by creatures we can barely picture before our mind’s eye and the desert ground sheltering countless animals from the heat above, many of which we will never know of. 

It is hard to determine which ones are copies of the already known and which are new, unaccounted for. But still, once in a while, somebody will come across such a bug, creature or animal. 

And once in a while, we get half-truths of mythical beasts, Bigfoot, Mothman, Ghouls, Ghosts and Demons, in an attempt to explain a footprint we do not know or a shadow we can’t explain. It is, of course, known that these things do not exist. And knowledge is, after all, an agreed upon state of truth. Humans have always been scared of things that go bang in the night. Rightly so. But chances are it was a mountain lion, a bat, the wind. 

The report lands on Professor Malek’s office at 10:24 on a Tuesday morning. At first, his reaction is annoyance, annoyance at the pilot team for not calibrating the instruments, this would not be the first time it has happened. 

Then his annoyance turns into confusion and curiosity. Sure, the readings, they… may still be false but there’s something… something else, a faint memory, a footnote… 

He only recalls it dimly, can’t even really remember which report it was from…. Or was it a study? Surely, it must be here somewhere, somewhere in this damned laboratory.

It’s sheer luck that allows Malek to find it within the first hour of his search, at the back of the filing cabinet he keeps in the corner of the room, the one full of things he’s simply kept for nostalgia purposes, not believing they had any actual relevance to his research. 

But there it is, clear as day. Right there, the data recorded almost 30 years ago, but in almost the same location, or nearby, for sure. He removes the loose page from the binding, holding it up close to the sonogram sent in by the pilot team earlier that morning. 

The phone rattles loudly as it hits the floor, earning a curse from Malek as he reaches around under the desk for it, finally pressing it to his ear, glasses askew and Harris on the other end shouting his  _ Hello? _ s into a seemingly infinite void. 

“Harris,” Malek belts down the line, his excitement bordering on anxiety and barely contained within his hunched-over body, “Harris, I need more data. I need a team.”

  
  
  
  


John Harris started his professional life as little more than a glorified mailman. Seattle Research Center is a massive complex of buildings, some of them dating back two-hundred years, some of them still tormenting neighbouring sections with drilling and hammering so penetrating that people choose to work unofficial night shifts rather than have to put up with the unbearable screech of metal forcing its way into concrete. Before the age of the E-Mail, the world was very slow. Telephone calls would dominate the building, but unfortunately, sending 200 pages of research through the wire was something of a nuisance and before the fax machine was over-strained, it seemed more convenient to hire a student thankful for every cent of cash he could scrape together, even if he got it for lugging heavy books and files along a mile of predominantly unwelcoming, cold, grey corridors. 

It did mean he got to interact a lot with a lot of important people. Even if it was just a quick nod or even a telling off because he’d taken about two minutes longer than Doctor Abrahams thought he should have, it was enough for people to know his face, to know Harris the Wheeler, as they used to call him. He thinks it’s because of the trolley he used to transport his files and books, it’s the only explanation he can conceive of. 

He survived the transition to the digital age, outliving some of the higher-ranking workers of the institute, Professors left behind by the speed of the world and the outdatedness of their research. News travels fast and knowledge increases exponentially, and now we’re in the high numbers. Keep up or be forgotten.

Harris does not intend for the latter. 

Some people might say his Chemistry degree is wasted on him, still crawling through the halls of SRC thirty years later, but the truth is, well, there are two truths, the first truth is, it pays well. He’s more than just the glorified mailman now, he’s something closer to a PA. A PA to an entire department. They do things their own way, but it works well enough. He knows he has Malek’s complete trust to put together the team he considers nothing short of the best. 

The team can’t be too big, not where they’re heading to, the more people there are, the more likely somebody will get left behind. Two local guides, a scout from the Center, a Chemist, two Biologists, a Geologist part-timing as a Meteorologist, and himself. They’re put on a plane 75 hours later, their gear stored away between bikini-filled suitcases and sunhats, heading south at 500 miles an hour on the orders of a sonogram.

  
  
  
  


“Wentz, hey, dude, Wentz!” The call of his name echoes around the corridor so loudly it’s a physical impossibility for him not to hear it, unfortunately, so, with a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself, he turns, not even attempting a polite smile. 

“What?!” Collins, the smug twat, raises his hand in mock defense, towering over Patrick even more than he already does and Patrick, not for the first time, wonders what his punishment for kneeing jerkoff in the balls would be. 

“Calm down, Trick-”

“It’s  _ Patrick _ ,” he spits.

“Calm down! I’m just the messenger! Miguel wants you before you disappear into whatever hole you crawl out of every morning.” Collins - Colin Collins and yes, that’s his actual name - has the most annoying face in existence. Skinny, long, teeth too big for his mouth and a constant look of judgement in his eye. Patrick notes he has something of Donald Trump - the younger one - and files it away at the back of his mind for future reference. His cologne smells of new money and everything he touches reeks of it, so Patrick dodges past him as quickly as he can, avoiding his slimy hands trying to pat him on the shoulder. 

Miguel isn’t alone. 

“Sir,” Patrick greets, though it’s a question more than a warm welcome, the sight of their boss disconcerting because it means… it must mean…

“Patrick! Sit down!” Miguel simply shrugs when Patrick frowns at him. He doesn’t seem overjoyed at whatever is about to be propositioned.

“Patrick, how are you doing?” Unsure, he glances at his friend before answering the question.

“Fine, same… as usual, I guess…”

“Good, good,” Brown mutters to himself, “Good, your mother, is she well again?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah, fantastic. Everything fine with yourself, I assume?”

“Yes, I…” he throws another questioning look at Miguel, who is doing everything within his power to stare at the tiny potted palm tree in the corner. It’s a nice office, light green walls, white furniture, plants and photos, most of them Patrick’s, decorating the room. 

“We received a call a few minutes ago,” Brown finally begins explaining, getting out of his chair and pacing the little, green room that feels more comforting than patrick’s own home has in a long time, decorated with nothing but memories of ghosts, “there’s been… a discovery, a scientific one. It needs documentation, the team has requested a linguist, a journalist and a photographer.” Patrick sighs loudly, letting his head tip back to look at the ceiling, more industrial than the rest of the room, bright LED lamps speckled across it. He can still see them when he blinks, artificial stars behind his eyelids. He keeps trying to see him in them, see his eyes, his smile, fading from his memory more and more as the days pass. He’s already forgotten his voice, the only evidence of its existence on his external storage. Even that is gathering dust. 

“Where?” He’s hoping for maybe Wyoming or Cali, Cali would be nice, a bit of sun to not get a tan. He never tans. White to red to white again. Like a disassembled American Flag… the blue being the current state of his balls, he supposes. Patrick, however, hasn’t had his way in quite a while now. He should, really, stop hoping for things, he tends to just get let down by his expectations and wishes and he is fully aware of this, every waking minute reminding him of the burden that is carrying his very existence on his shoulders, and in this moment, he remembers the left-over rice he put in the fridge over a week ago that was, without a shade of doubt, growing a culture of as-yet undiscovered funghi on it. Maybe if he brought it to the attention of the scientific community, they would pay him enough for it so he wouldn’t have to go on this excursion that would undoubtedly send him to a back corner of the country he was decidedly not interesting in setting foot in. 

 

The Midwest is pretty dull. Not much to see beyond acres and acres of corn and sky, and the single winding road taking you from anywhere to Chicago because, well, what other destination would any sane man have in the Midwest and it’s infinite nothing? It’s only natural, then, that Patrick feels like the insane man in town, heading the other way in a car the driver can barely steer for lack of practice, so old he’s afraid of even looking at it for too long for fear it might fall to pieces under his gaze. He’s not sure what the smell coming from the old leather seats is, exactly, and he’s not 100% certain he’s keen on finding out. It smells old, as old as the entire car feels, stuffed to the brim with anything that would fit, weighed down until he’s convinced he can feel the belly of the vehicle scraping along the hot road below. He can’t be certain without hearing the toe-curling sound of metal on tarmac, a sound that, if it’s there, is being blotted out by his Sony headphones neatly settled over his ears, Green Day providing the new name for the 270, newly christened the Boulevard of Broken dreams, regardless of the lack of greenery down the middle. 

He doesn’t know where they were headed, not beyond the name, anyway, knows however sweet and charming the small town with its little, white wood houses was, it won’t be able to replace the crumbling brick of Gage Park or the towering concrete and glass of North Side, that ocean smell despite the lack of one, the screams of gulls already replaced with irritatingly penetrant cicadas chirping miles away.

Even the wind was a stranger here. 

He curses the year between him and his diploma, the year that’s robbed him of his friends, his home, of everything he knows, and curses the people who have dragged him out of it, away from everything he loves and uprooted him to the middle of fucking nowhere with nothing but old men and chickens to keep him company. 

There is nothing for him here and he hasn’t even arrived. Patrick might as well be dead. 

 

“Ah, fuck, man, I’m sick of this fuckin’ matress, how do the Japs live like this?”  _ Ah, the sweet morning song of Jane Fahr. How I have missed it these past 24 hours. _

Hannah finishes scrubbing the sticky skin on the back of his hand and drops the washcloth back in the warm water before turning to greet his colleague into the light of a new day. 

“Morning, douchebag. I’d ask you how you slept but I take it not well. And don’t say  _ Japs _ , it’s racist.” 

Jane, face contorted to a pained frown as she stretches her back, vertebrae cracking one-by-one, doesn’t seem to care much about her politically incorrect way of speech.

“Bloody idiots sleep on these voluntarily, what do you want me to call ‘em?” 

“Japanese because that’s what they are. And I’ll have you know a thin mattress in a tent put up on an uneven forest floor because the constructor was too lazy to clear the ground beforehand is not the same as a futon.” She doesn’t catch the response, a low grumble as Jane searches through the cool box between their tents. Hannah doesn’t ask Jane for the can of no-brand energy drink pressed to her palm, but she takes it anyway, a sharp hiss spraying her with sticky-sweet droplets of cool liquid as she opens it. 

“Four days,” Jane mutters from her seat beside her, “four days since we bloody sent for those fucks and they’re still not here. Four bloody days.” To an extent, her frustration is understandable. The air is hot and heavy, even at this time of day and Hannah is sick of having to shit on the same spot of bare ground getting steadily more gross every day because they could barely get their backpacks into the forest, let alone a chemical toilet. Unlike herself and the rest of the team, however, Jane Fahr has a habit of communicating her frustration to an extent where it lowers what Harris would refer to as the group’s morale. 

“The vegetation here is thick,” she tries to reason, already feeling the first droplets of sweat on the back of her neck, “it’ll take them a while to cut through.” She all but scoffs.

“Not like we already cleared the way for them or anything, is it?” If there’s one thing Hannah has learned in the last two weeks, it’s that when Jane begins to complain, it’s best to let her roll with it. Blend it out like the sounds of the night, the ones that, were she not to ignore them, would deny her any rest. Jane’S happiest when she’s making people laugh and, if she can’t do that, she’ll make sure everybody knows exactly how bad a mood she’s in.

“Are you bloody complaining again? Is Jane bloody complaining again, Hannah?” Not wanting to get involved, especially not at 9a.m. before they’ve even got started, Hannah decides to remove Herself from the discussion early, by simply leaving. Always an effective method, a little rude, perhaps, but 15 days surrounded by the same research team sometimes drives you to abandon your manners. 

It’s then that she spots them. Or rather, spots a rustling in the undergrowth. And overgrowth. And everything growth, the wall of vegetation cutting her off from the real world and denying her access to undisturbed communication channels. On autopilot, her hand goes to the machete on her hip, always carried just in case, so far not been used against anything but lianas and a rather persistent fern. She hopes it will stay that way, though the sound of - presumably - human talking gives her reason to relax. 

She’s always thankful for the lack of mirrors in the rainforest, but is reminded of that gratitude with the emergence of the four sweat-drenched and red-hot men from behind the wall of green.

Two rangers.

Two journalists.

She takes her hand from her belt.

“You took your sweet time!” Hannah declares, holding a hand out for the first ranger to take, a tall, dark man with a kind face but biceps that could probably tear apart a gorilla if challenged. 

“It’s these guys here, I don’t think they’ve seen too many rainforests in their lifetime.” They certainly don’t look it. The first, rather tall but also rather… large, though she has learned not to take that as an indicator of physical fitness, it’s more the fact that he doubles over, hands on knees, panting heavily that hints at low stamina. The second is rather short and skinny which is just as useless if you’re cutting your way through jungle, something the red-faced blond has clearly realised himself. 

“I’m Dr. Hannah Gallagher, the ecologist here, I take it you’re… Miguel and Patrick? Patrick and Miguel?” Her eyes dart back and forth between the two panting men, waiting for a reply. It’s the tall one that gives it to her.

“Miguel and Patrick. Hi, hey… do you have, like… a chair? Something to eat would be nice, too…” Patrick doesn’t feel the need to introduce himself.

She guides them towards the camp chairs, setting two up for them before settling in a third.

“Sorry for the rather rude hello, we’re just… more used to the concrete jungles than, well… actual jungles.” Miguel finishes off with a small laugh. Hannah smiles out of sympathy rather than genuine amusement.

“I’d ask you how the journey here was, but, well… I can guess.” 

  
  


By the time the eighth night with nothing but restlessly closed eyes and heavy, damp breaths, Patrick’s patience is wearing thin. Sleeping is always a coin-flip, he finds. Deep and peaceful or no relief from the day at all. The rainforest has weighed the coin. Were there no others he could blame his less than desirable situation on, he’d surely be cursing himself for agreeing to this, what he believed to be, hoax. More and more it seemed just so. Perhaps he’s here to provide evidence that would distract from whatever greater problem the American public needs distracting from for a few days or weeks. 

At this point, journalistic merit out of the window, he’d be happy to tell the world dogs grew flippers and lived on the moon if it got him out of the sticky heat for just one night. 

He can’t stop scratching the back of his head, a phantom itch or so since that mptherfucking centipede found its way into his tent the night before. There was an unsettling reason as to why everybody slept in single tents rather than sharing, body heat aside. See, if somebody ends up with a dinner-plate sized tarantula in theirs, it’s less likely to murder half the crew if they’re not all stuffed beneath the ame canvas cover. 

The sounds are almost as bad as the heat. The crickets he knows from midwestern corn fields are nothing in comparison, insects of all descriptions, most of which he doesn’t and doesn’t want to know, screaming at him from every corner of the jungle. 

A glance at his watch lets him know he has an hour to sunrise. Patrick resigns himself to another sleepless night with a groan and crawls out of his personal greenhouse, the outside no relief, in fact he’s not sure if it might not be worse. But he’s out of drinking water and can feel the sweat clinging to his skin, so he stretches his limbs and clicks his back and slips into his boots in search of water. 

Their reservoir is easy to locate, always in the exact same spot, after all, and he knows faintly the direction of the river. It’s 60 feet wide at this point, not like he could overlook it. 

The problem with the Madre de Dios, at least at this point, is that it barely has a shore. The rainforest seems to fall into the river at its edge, roots thirsting for the water the same as him. He finds it alright, though almost wets his boots in the process. It’s not too deep at the sides, though, fearful of venturing too far, he’s careful as he removes his clothes and steps in. He’s not supposed to, was advised against it, told the water at the camp is cleaner, but he’s tired of the lukewarm, chlorinated sludge they recycle again and again until he’s sure even the chemicals can’t cast away the bacteria that must be collecting in it. The river is no cooler than the makeshift showers they had shipped in, and it is probably no cleaner, either, but something about it revives him as he washes the dirt from his skin, first splashing it on his face, but eventually letting himself sink down until the surface closes over his shoulders. Patrick closes his eyes and the insects sing. 

The moonlight barely filters through the trees, but where it does, it is enough for Patrick, whose eyes are beginning to grow accustomed to the absence of street lamps, to make out shapes and movements, even on the other side of the river. Enough for him to pick on something… something in the water.

He freezes upon spotting it, watching carefully, uncertain of whether it was a trick of the light, paranoia or real, the ripple in the surface, the commotion below. 

Below.

He hadn’t thought about that.

But no, no, there it was! For sure, there was movement! Close b, getting closer still, ripples on the surface, a… hint of a shadow below and… and…

Patrick, for the first time since getting off the plane at Viru Viru, feels cold shoot through his bones. The only thing stopping the shudder is the fear, fight or flight response deactivated as his body fails him and his muscles refuse to obey. 

He doesn’t know what lives beneath the surface aside from what he still believes to be a fairytale.

Something brushes past his leg, something cold and slimy and he doesn’t want to consider what it might be. It seems small, smaller than the shadow he thinks he saw. Maybe that was his brain fooling him or the moon playing tricks. Perhaps he was scared of a tiny little fish. 

The thought makes him relax a little, a relieved sort of nervous laugh tumbling from his throat as he turns to find what it was that just touched him. It can’t be big, it didn’t feel big, so how dangerous can it be? 

Then it shoots past him, fast as lightning, bigger, considerably bigger, than the little fish, but heading straight for it, he catches nothing but a silver shine through the surface as the blur of a fish, a much bigger, much faster fish, flashes past him. He tries to run to the riverbank and scramble out as there’s a struggle in the water where he presumes his little friend is being devoured, fearful of becoming the next victim and now really, truly, curing himself for not adhering to the rules. 

It is not easy running in water and Patrick considers the probability of being caught in one of those dreams where you can’t get away, no matter how hard you try. But willing himself awake does nothing and the fear creeping up his spine is too real. 

Not far from the nearest root he can grab to haul himself up and out, he steps on a rock, a shell, a rotting carcass, something that makes him slip-stumble further into the water as thought the river itself is pulling him further in further to where he will lose his footing, where he won’t stand a chance. 

Patrick tries his best to stand up again but curses as white-hot pain shoots through his leg, a grunt and whimper escaping him as he does his best to paddle to safety.

Too slow. 

His jaw clenches along with his brow as he feels the wet scales against his leg. They’re rough, like an alligator maybe, something big, something dangerous and, going by the struggle, something hungry. 

Patrick’s thought many a time about death. He spends too much of his days contemplating it now, how, what, when, who, and, most importantly, what then? Will he get another chance?

He hopes so. He has so much he wants to tell him.

But death doesn’t come for Patrick just then. He has other plans for him.

The animals swims past, seemingly not acknowledging until it turns, moonlight catching on its scales, so close to the surface now.

It is, however, no fish. For a second, Patrick thinks his heart stops and the blood turns to ice in his veins as the creature rises from the water, highlighted by the moon. It carries a man’s head on a man’s shoulders, the dark skin covered by a sheen of something glistening, something… fish-like. Its head is bald, allowing Patrick to see the slight rise along the middle of the skull, and it is not as wide as those he knows. It is the silhouette he notices first, skinnier, slighter than an average man’s, but not a woman’s, either. There’s a definite slope to the shoulders. 

The air around him seems freezing as… whatever it is moves closer, until he can look it in the eye. It’s taller than him, at least… at least from what he can tell, its chest emerging from below the surface where his is still covered. He’s not sure why he’s still alive, surely it could tear his throat out if it wanted to and he doesn’t know if the safer option is to stay staring it down or to turn and run… though he doubts he would get very far on his legs. Leg. There’s a dull thud in his left ankle, and he prays it’s merely bruised. Then again, it won’t matter if he gets eaten first. 

The fear sets back in when the animal leans closer, the sweat he just washed off immediately covering his body again as he tenses up and tries to lean out of its way. Its nostrils flare, clearly taking in his scent, evaluating him, wondering if the kill would be worth it. It cocks its head, eyes carefully scanning his face carefully like it’s… curious? 

The tension in Patrick’s muscles releases, just a little, as the beast musters him carefully, almost as though it’s studying him. Is it studying him? He flinches away when it raises what can only be described as a hand, thought the bony fingers seem to be webbed, milky in the light. To Patrick’s surprise, it retracts its hand immediately when he does so.

For a moment, he forgets he is real in the wake of this… creature that so, so closely resembles a human but the eyes are just a little too wide-set, a little too dark, the nose is a little too flat, its shape a little too… alien. Human? Barely. Animal? Hardly.

He takes in the broadness of its ribcage, the length of its arms, the dark pattern over its skin, and asks, in a voice croaky from fear: “What are you?”

The water around him moves and splashes against his bare legs as the creature suddenly backs away, hands thrown over the side of its head as it glares at him in alarm. Patrick frowns, mouth hanging open, trying to formulate a new set of words, asking again, asking more but before he can, as suddenly as it appeared, the creature is gone. 

Patrick is left to his own devices as he drags himself back out of the water he should probably never set foot in, stuck between believing what he just saw and being certain he caught something in that river that’s making him lose his mind. 

The camp is still asleep by the time he gets back, though the sky is already growing lighter by the minute. He crawls back into his tent, shaken, scared and chasing sleep with open eyes.

 

Everything seems the same when he wakes up. Alone the fact that he isn’t called out of bed, well… sleeping bag, indicates that little to nothing of significance has happened and the next morning, everything is the same it has been for the last week. It’s almost like summer camp if you cut out the sweltering heat, the hand-sized bugs and pretty much everything else. Nobody seems to be working anymore. 

He forgets about his foot until he tries walking on it, hissing and cursing under his breath and drawing Hannah’s attention.

“Morning… is your leg okay?” she nods down at his wobbly feet. Patrick shrugs.

“I’m not sure anything is okay anymore.” It seems years away, so far that he’s not convinced he didn’t dream it and were it not for his foot, there’d be no question about it.

“What do you mean?” Hannah leans over him, now settled in a camping chair next to her, the canvas not yet too hot to sit on as it will be in about two hours.

He thinks about brushing it off, blaming it on too little sleep or maybe a dodgy mosquito bite, but… but. There’s a reason they’re here. If he’s to be declared mad, then so be it, what does he have to lose at this point? If they send him home, all the better. He should never have come here.

“I… saw one.” the skin at the beds of his nails is too long, overgrowing, needs taken care of. He considers this as he begins picking at it, pushing it back and forth and back and forth until it turns flakey.

“Saw… saw what?” He wishes he knew.

“I think… one of the things we’re looking for. In the river last night. Went down when I couldn’t sleep and there was this… this thing, I can’t… I dunno, maybe I’m just losing my mind.” He gives a resigned chuckle, realising how ridiculous he sounds, how ridiculous this entire situation is.

Hannah, however, isn’t laughing. And when he glances up to meet her gaze, it’s stern, somber. He sinks further into his chair, brow drawn to a frown. Patrick feels his stomach bubble with nerves, the cold chill of the night before doesn’t return, but the feeling of uncertainty does. A precipice of a new world. If he is right. 

“What, Hannah? What is it?” Hannah musters him carefully before glancing around them, eyes scanning the trees, the ground. 

“You think it’s real?” 

“Yes. Why else would we be here?” 

“And I just… got lucky?”

“Lucky? I don’t know… we’ve been on the tail of this for years, I… what was it?” 

Yes. What was it. Patrick wishes he had the answer for her. He wishes he had it for himself. He doesn’t even know where to start, the eyes, the head, the skin, the way it came so close to him, examined him, studied him… 

How human it was. And how close to home it hit. And for a lack of a better word, Patrick said:

“A merman.”

 

Deep beneath the green-blue surface of the Madre de Dios, things were changing. The roots of the trees and the floor of the river, every few steps along the sides and in the water. Instruments. Gadgets. Measuring. Diagramming. Evaluating. Comparing. 

Within the hour, it had turned into a research base, now that the team could focus on on point, rather than spreading out over miles and miles of river, uncertain as to what they were looking for. 

John isn’t sure about it, to say the least. The ramblings of a photographer out galavanting in the middle of the night, not the most reliable of sources, but he knows what they’re looking for, and he knows that if they want to find it, they have to work together. The team is small enough as it is, they can’t much afford in-fighting. 

So he sits and waits, watching the ripples on the water, every one capturing his attention and bottling it for a second before casting it away into the flow of the river. 

Maybe they’re nocturnal. It would make sense after what the photographer said, hunting at night. And so openly, surely the apex predator in its environment. John had to be honest, the thought doesn’t do much to comfort him. 

“How’s your life as a pensioner going, Johnny Boy?” Jane slaps him on the back, her only form of greeting, before holding the pack of beef jerky under his nose. Grateful for the company more so than the snack, he takes one and points to the second chair set up beside him. He really must look like a pensioner sitting down by the Columbia River with his fishing rod and his bucket of worms. 

“Swimmingly.”

“Very funny.” She tips her head back and downs a handful of salt and fat. 

“Do you think we’ll find anything?” Jane asks through a mouthful of jerky. 

“The photog did. Apparently.”

“That’s just the problem though, isn’t it? Like not to be that person but you know his record with… yanno.” Even if he didn’t the finger she taps to her temple is indication enough of what she’s talking about. John can only sigh as he watches a bright red bug make its way up the nearest tree.

“It has crossed my mind that he might not… be the most reliable of sources. But for now, he’s the closest we’ve come.”

“So you’re gonna sit here until the thing shows up again?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Jane’s better idea is, seemingly, to throw half a pack of beef jerky into the water as what John presumes to be bait and to shrug in resignation when nothing but a few hungry fish show up.

“Then yes, I’m just gonna sit here until the thing shows up again.”

 

“I think I’ll be heading off to bed.” Patrick glances up at Hannah, now standing beside him, arms stretched upward as she yawns openly. He envies her ability to just… sleep.

“Uh, yes, me too, I think…” to his right, Miguel also gets out of his chair, barely sparing Patrick a glance. “I should definitely get some rest. Patrick?”

He shakes his head. “No not just yet.”

“Are you sure? You’ll regret it tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I probably won’t sleep, anyway…”

“You can join John on that,” Hannah remarks, “I think he really is planning on staying in that chair all night.” Patrick looks over his shoulder towards the river. Sure enough, the silhouette of John is backlit by the moon. 

“Might do that then.” She nods decisively.

“Right then. Good night! Try not to fall in again.” 

“Yeah, watch out for yourself, Pat.” Miguel adds and before Patrick can complain about the nickname, he, too, has disappeared.

John, against his suspicions, isn’t asleep. In fact, his eyes are laser-focussed on the pitch-black surface. Patrick settles down beside him, and even then, John doesn’t let his attention swerve from the river. Patrick often wonders about him, the oldest member of the team, without a doubt, and though he was never unkind to Patrick, he never really acknowledged him in the first place. Patrick can’t really blame him, understands he’s not the most personable of people. He tries. Doesn’t always succeed. 

“At least it doesn’t get cold, right?” he attempts a conversation. John hums in agreement.

“Mosquitos are a menace though, could do with less of those motherfuckers.” His accent is odd, a southern twang softened by West-Coast melody. 

“Yea, quite a bit bigger than the ones back home, too.” Something about his response makes John chuckle warmly.

“Nah, I know fuckers like this from when I was a boy! Used to fly around the Mississippi all summer, stung us to pulps whenever we’d come within a mile of it.” 

“Where did you grow up?”

“Arkansas! Yea, not much but farms and heat and way too many bugs, if ya ask me. And all this bug repellent shit ya get nowadays just weren’t round at the time. Or it didn’t work properly. Fly paper everywhere, used’a spook one of the cows so we’d - my brother and I - we’d have’da take it down and put it back up every time she went through the barn door! God, they were stupid creatures, but very dear. Very dear, we didn’t cram em in boxes smaller than them when I was a boy, i’ll tell ya.” Patrick can’t help but smile at the way John’s hands fly as he talks, he can almost feel the burning heat of american Summer and would do anything to exchange it for the flesh-melting stickiness surrounding him.

“What does your brother do? Now, I mean. Still putting up flypaper for cows?” Something about his demeanour tells Patrick he’s breached a sensitive topic. So early on in the conversation. He wishes he’d not asked.

“My… brother, bless his soul, got caught up in the Gulf War. Didn’t make it home. Left me herding cows all by myself and didn’t much fancy that, so this is me! Gonna blame the bugger if I get butchered in the Bolivian jungle.” He finishes off with a chuckle, as though there was no tragedy to the story. Patrick is a little lost for words, he merely nods, following his gaze out over the water.

“You and me,” John continues, “I think we… understand life better than the rest of them, yanno. It only really starts when you learn to live past something like that.” 

Patrick searches within himself, trying to find something he can offer as a confirmation, an explanation, something beyond the automated response system set up by his mind. He comes up with nothing.

“Yeah. Quite possibly.” 

The conversation is continued by the insects, singing and chirping to them through the night, a cacophony of the wild they’ve settled into, and a reminder of how very far apart they’ve grown of everything they were ever supposed to be. Except, maybe, for one thing.

Patrick’s not sure what makes his senses trail to that one point in the water, some ancient instinct - hunter? Prey? - forcing his concentration to one spot not far away from them. It’s still, mirrored surface reflecting dapples of silver moonlight dancing over the natural flow of the river, no further waves or ripples, nothing out of the ordinary and maybe it was nothing but a fish, but -

“Sir…” Patrick breathes into the heat.

“Please, just John’s enough.”

“No, John, look… over there.” He doesn’t watch as John follows the line of his finger, but is aware of the binoculars being removed from their cover. Patrick doesn’t need them. He knows what he is seeing. 

The creature is submerged up to its nostrils, just the top of its head showing out of the water, but it’s facing them, clearly watching. Carefully, it inches closer, testing them out, obviously curious but distrusting of the strangers waiting for it. He’s not sure what makes him do it, but Patrick holds up both his hands, showing it that he’s not carrying anything, not holding anything. As it swims closer, Patrick can tell it’s not watching him, but John, something nearing suspicion in its eyes. There’s something scary in the fact that he can read its expression. 

“Put your hands up,” Patrick urges. He does as he’s told, and sure enough, it comes closer. 

“My God,” words fail John as it comes to a halt as close to them as it can get, and this time, Patrick can make out more, the little camp light between them showing off the green-brown of its skin, the marble pattern covering it, the deep amber glow of its eyes. “It’s… beautiful!” 

The creature lifts a hand out of the water, Patrick now being able to clearly make out the webbing between its fingers, and points, towards his own leg. Patrick can only frown down at it. 

“My… my leg?” It cocks his head in what closely resembles a frown and points again, more aggressively. It’s then that he realises, that’s the leg he injured the night before, the pain almost completely gone now save the occasional twang of pain when he moves his ankle too much. Carefully, he removes his boot and sock and rolls up the bottom of his trousers before he edges closer to the river, not certain he won’t be dragged in and drowned. It clearly eats meat.

But the creature has no intention of eating him, instead carefully taking the foot in its hand. Patrick marvels at the coolness of its skin and is relieved to find it’s not gross and slimy like he’d presumed, but rather very smooth. In its other hand, it’s holding something, something that makes Patrick twitch away at first, but the creature gently holds onto his foot and meets his eye and Patrick thinks he hears a quite, soothing hum come from it. Whatever the gooey mixture is that it spreads over his ankle, it feels good, incredibly good, actually, it’s very hot, but only for a moment before it crusts up, soothing the skin below and Patrick can almost feel the light swelling begin to drain. 

“Thank you,” he says, not sure if it will understand. But the creature glares at him, clamping its hand over its mouth. Having clearly enraged it, Patrick tries to pull away again, now suddenly not feeling as safe, but he can’t. It shakes his head. Is that a no? Once again, it removes its hand from its mouth and clamps it back over and, for lack of anything else to do, Patrick does the same. It nods. So that is  _ yes  _ and  _ no _ . 

_ Oh _ . 

Remembering the way they parted the night before and hoping he’s got the right message, Patrick tries again, dropping his voice down to a whisper.

“Thank you.” The creature seems satisfied with that. 

Patrick believes he’s seen enough sci-fi films to make this up as he goes along, evidently this thing can communicate, so that’s better than nothing and it clearly has the same symbolic meaning for yes and no.

He points at his own chest and whispers his name.

“Patrick.” It cocks its head again. “Pa-trick.” The light they have allows him enough vision to see its lips moving, but no sound emerges. Can it talk? Is that how it communicates? Does it even communicate? It must do, surely. Clearly it already has with him. He tries again.

“Patrick.” The creature nods, again moving its lips with no sound. Its Patrick’s turn to frown, lost as to what to do. It must be the same situation from the other side for the creature, watching him, reading him, trying to understand.

Patrick freezes as it beckons him, hands waving towards the water in an attempt to get him to jump in, at least that’s what he presumes. Patrick glances over his shoulder at John, mouth agape and eyes fixed on the creature. It’s still beckoning him. Carefully, he slides in, not thinking to remove his clothes before and regretting it the instance he realises. His heart is racing, that primal instinct that made him spot the creature suddenly telling him to run. He suppresses it best he can. 

It becomes stronger with the hands that gently cup his face, the coolness of them a relief that goes unnoticed amid the nerves eating him alive. 

And suddenly, he is underwater. 

Patrick struggles against it, thrashing out, trying to kick the creature drowning him away. He breaks the surface with ease, gasping for air he doesn’t need, it was barely a few seconds. 

It holds its hands up the way he did moments before, taking a step away to give him space. Patrick stands in confusion and fear. This time, the creature doesn’t force him down, merely submerges itself and waits. He can see the top of its head still above the surface. His jaw clenches, nervously telling him to get out, but what does he have to lose, really? Nothing. Not anymore.

It’s giving him space, trying to get him below the water but leaving it up to him if he does. Rationally, he’s not in any danger.

Patrick bites his lip, takes a breath and dives.

He can’t see down here, it’s too dark, that fear bubbling back up but he reminds himself that he’s a few centimetres away from his next breath.

Then he hears it. It’s an odd, melodic sound, almost like whale song but too human for that. Too human. Within the noise, he thinks he can make out a word.

“Patrick.” 

He breaks the surface again. The creature follows moments later, looking at him hopefully. He nods. Maybe he’s losing his mind but he thinks there’s a smile playing on its lips before it dives back beneath the surface.

This time, the word is different, this time, it makes Patrick’s throat close up and his chest clench and he doesn’t waste a second before going back up. 

The creature is looking at him with the same curious expression. Patrick no longer feels the same.

“How do you know?” It frowns at him. “How could you possibly… possibly know that?” It cocks its head, hammering against its own chest, its lips moving wordlessly but Patrick couldn’t hear it even if they were underwater. He closes his eyes against the sting in them and shakes his head. A cool hand finds his cheek again, trying to turn his face back towards it, but he fights it, instead moving further away, backwards until he could scramble back to land.

When he turns back around, in the safety of his own environment, it’s drifted further away, once again peering out from just above the surface. And then, just as suddenly as it came, it’s gone.

 

Now that Patrick isn’t the only one that’s seen it, the camp is buzzing. The entire team is excitedly checking last night’s readings and evaluating it. Patrick gets pulled aside by Larry their biologist, and made to listen to the old recordings that brought them here in the first place.

“Is that what it sounded like?” he asks, trying to mask the excitement in his voice. Patrick shrugs. 

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“And it could only talk underwater?” 

“I think I could only hear it underwater.” Larry nods.

“Makes sense.”

“Does it?” Patrick remains unconvinced.

“Yeah, sound carries better underwater. So I’m guessing their voices are just very quiet.” 

“Whoa, who, wait, they? Who said anything about there being more if them?” Larry crouches down beside him, looking way happier about this situation than Patrick thinks he should.

“If it can communicate, then there must be more of them. Why develop a system of communication? I mean, that aside, it’s highly unlikely for there to only be a single specimen this evolved. Small mutations, sure, can be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but this is an entire species! And the fact that it has such a complex form of communication, so, I’m guessing this is something akin to language, indicates that it’s probably a social creature…”

“Like humans.”

“Yes. Like humans.” Patrick’s brain is ticking over, still trying to make sense of everything. He’s not yet convinced himself that all this isn’t a fever dream. His head feels like it might explode.

“Can you get photos of it? Tonight, ideally. I know you’re here from the papers, but Miguel has agreed to write a press statement for us, seeing as scientists are so awful at PR.” Absentmindedly, Patrick nods.

“I mean, I can try… I guess. It’s my job after all.” Larry grins broadly.

“Amazing! I’ve ordered in a linguist so we can talk to this guy, hopefully. I’d love to get an up-close look but I’m afraid it might drown me if I get too up-close and personal.” 

“I dunno,” Patrick interrupts,”he seemed curious, too. Maybe it could be a mutual thing.” 

“He did? Maybe… I mean, big maybe, we have no idea what these creatures are, but maybe they have their own concept of learning and education. Maybe the one you spoke to is a scientist or… well, an equivalent. I’m sure we could come to  _ some _ agreement, if that’s the case. What did you say his name was, again?” 

Patrick lets out a languid sigh, eyes trailing off to the distance.

“Pete, he said his name was.”

 

That evening, Patrick waits by the river with his gear set up around him. He’s not sure how to explain the concept of a photo to a merman, he figured he’d make it up as he went along, but when he spots the big, amber eyes, words fail him. 

It’s just him tonight, the rest of the team represented by the instruments set up along the riverbank. Pete’s clearly taken note of them, even if they are presumably concealed, carefully watching as he swims closer. 

“Hello,” Patrick greets, remembering to keep his voice low. Pete holds up his hands and Patrick mimics him. They seem to have established a greeting, even if it was accidental. He’ll take what he can get. There’s a moment of hesitation before Pete points to the camera sitting beside him, head cocked to the side once again. Slowly, Patrick puts a hand over it.

“Camera.” To his surprise, Pete swims closer, so close that he can put his hands on the dry ground and push himself upwards. 

Patrick can do nothing but stare as more of his body is revealed. The head and arms are one thing, close to human but animal enough to seem foreign, not unlike perhaps a monkey, but as his torso comes into sight, Patrick becomes more and more aware of how closely they might be related. Colour and texture aside, he’s built like any human, even if the ribcage is a little wider than expected, but everything else… 

Patrick’s so distracted by how weirded out he is that he doesn’t notice Pete leaning in closer to his camera until he tentatively reaches out to touch it. Without sparing great thought for it, he stops the wet hand before it can touch the body, holding Pete’s wrist tight. It earns him, probably deservedly, a rather offended-looking glare. In that moment, he’s thankful for being on nice, dry land and not up to his shoulders in jungle water where he wouldn’t stand half a chance of getting away if Pete decided to eat him alive. 

“Wet.” He tries to explain why exactly electrics and water don’t mix but Pete’s lack of vocabulary is proving to be something of a challenge. Searching for something to help him along, Patrick ends up pointing at the river.

“Wet.” Pete follows the direction of his finger. Patrick then pats the ground. “Dry.” He could almost cry out in frustration when Pete cocks his head. 

In another attempt, he points at the hand he was just holding.

“Wet.” and then at his own, “dry.” 

Something clicks behind those huge, amber eyes and he watches carefully as Pete wipes his hand one the - admittedly damp not dry - grass. To hurry things along, Patrick takes then hand and dries it on his shirt. Pete watches his face carefully as he reaches out for the camera again, this time satisfied when he’s allowed to touch it. 

He’s sort of expecting it to be like a monkey examining a tool for the first time, so there’s a pleasant surprise in the way Pete carefully handles his equipment. After finding the on-switch and being rather astounded by the screen, Patrick quickly intervenes before he deletes all camera files and, quite possibly, his pre-saved settings. He turns it until it sits correctly in his dry hands before guiding his eye to the viewfinder. A tiny noise of what he interprets as surprise escapes Pete, seemingly coming from his chest. Patrick moves his finger to the button and pushes down. The shutter sound cracks through the night and makes Pete flinch, but as the small image flashes up in the screen, his eyes widen and - Patrick can’t help but smile when Pete’s face is split in two by a huge grin, dampened only by the shape of his teeth - sharp, pointy, obviously made more for fish than for plants. 

Pete looks through the viewfinder again, directing the lens towards patrick this time. As the camera focuses, Patrick sees the integrated flash pop up and, before he can warn Pete, white light blinds the both of them. Patrick merely blinks it away, but Pete throws his arms over his face and cowers over, his body draped over the ground of the forest.

Hurriedly, Patrick scrabbles down to him, trying to get a look at his face, but when he touches Pete, he’s pushed away with such force that he ends up falling onto his back. 

Shocked and a little dazed, Patrick watches the creature as it rubs its tearing eyes, blinking into the darkness a few times before glancing over at him. There’s no anger in its face, but no sign of regret or apology either as he drops the camera and backs away until he’s back to floating in the water. 

The photo. Patrick needs that photo. 

Hurriedly, he scrambles towards his camera, grabbing at it with both hands and twisting the wheel to no flash before aiming it at Pete. He sees his eyes open in what might be fear, sees him turn his head, swim away, dive beneath the surface…

The photo that comes up on the screen is black.

 

Tip number one for aspiring photographers: Always shoot in RAW. It’s an image format that doesn’t just record a picture, but saves all the data on the light that fell through the lens and onto the sensor. Think of it like your eye seeing something and adjusting to the darkness rather than just taking a photo in the dark. If you edit a JPEG photo that’s basically black to be brighter, two things will happen: 1) your picture will be mainly noise. Now, this happens in RAW, too, but the problem isn’t nearly as big there because 2) if you brighten a JPEG image, you’ll basically end up losing structure and details. There isn’t much to save, all you can do - at best - is make out weird shapes and barely-human face. Ask Creepypasta, they’re pros at this. If you lighten a RAW image, however, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to salvage a lot of the photo. Image components become visible, you can eliminate shadows that are too dark and, if you’re lucky, make out the strange face of a merman floating in the Madre de Dios.

Patrick, thankfully, always had his camera default-set to RAW. 

The first person he showed the photo to was Miguel. At first he frowned at him, complaining about the low quality, how people wouldn’t believe it was real. Patrick quickly shut him down by explaining it was this or nothing. Next on the list was Larry. Unlike Miguel, he was overjoyed to have at least some documentation of the creature and immediately went to send the photo on to Malek, who Patrick presumed was somebody back at the research facility. He didn’t care enough to ask. 

“He came on land last night.” Larry’s eyes widen. God bless him for his curiosity, it may have killed the cat but Patrick is grateful for the positivity Larry’s excitement brings to the camp. There’s not enough of that going around. 

“On land? Like, he walked, or-”

“No, just his torso, like… the rest was still in the river.”

“What did he look like?” Patrick shrugs.

“Uh… same as us kinda, he… I can draw it for you?” Larry nods excitedly, immediately turning to his box of office material in search of paper and a pen.

“I didn’t know you could draw!” 

“I spend enough time looking at people to know how to depict them, I guess…”

“Makes sense.” He re-emerges with a notebook and a biro and whilst Patrick would have preferred a pencil, it will have to do. He makes quick work of the face and head, it doesn’t have to be exactly Pete’s features, he supposes it’s enough if he manages to pin down the differences between them and him. Plus, there’s enough of him visible on the photo to make out the basics. 

“He’s got… quite slim shoulders but a much broader chest…”

“Mmmh, that’ll be for greater lung capacity. As a member of the ape family I’m supposing he has lungs.” Patrick falters as he’s drawing the arms.

“Ape family?”

“Yes, well, same as us I can’t confirm without further inspections, of course, but I’m guessing this is a branch of humanity that evolved in the water. Sort of like dolphins are dogs that returned to the sea. There’s a nice fairytale about that I used to tell my kids when they were smaller.”

“You think he’s literally… literally a merman?” 

“Oh yes.”

 

The story broke in the Chicago Sun-Times the next day. Patrick didn’t really care about it until he found out, not so much because of who told him but the circumstances under which they did.

“They’re sending in the military.” 

“What?” John’s fists are clenched as he lens over the table in the research tent.

“The story broke and they’re involving the fucking military, see, this,  _ this _ is why you shouldn’t have sent the damn story yet. We barely know anything about this creature and we’ve already sent the damn military up its ass!” Patrick feels his stomach drop.

“With all due respect, sir, I was just doing my job.” Miguel defended himself. “I’m here as a journalist, that’s what you ordered, that’s what you get.”

“And look what blindly doing the job has done! Sometimes it helps to engage that brain of yours that got you here in the first place.” Miguel, not wanting to listen to the insults, simply gets up and leaves.

“To his defence,” Hannah speaks up, “he  _ was _ just doing his job.” Not a second later she’s following Miguel.

“What do we do now?” Larry asks carefully, the excitement gone from his voice. John sighs, taking a step back, visibly calmer.

“At least the linguist is arriving today. Let’s hope our fishy friend is kind enough to show up again soon.”

 

Felix Song is a young, calm man who makes Patrick feel comfortable the second he greets him with a warm smile. 

“You’re the one who’s interacted with him?”

“Yea, once or twice.” Felix nods.

“How did that go, did you understand each other?” 

“Uhm, at a very basic level… it’s, like, enough to get by with gestures but you can only hear his voice underwater.”

“Have you ever made an attempt at understanding his language?” 

“N-no, not really, he seemed… he seemed happy enough to learn mine, I guess.”

“I see…” Felix musters him carefully. “How about emotionally, did you feel like he… liked you? Feared you?”

“He was curious more than anything, I think.”

“And what about you, do you like him?” Patrick bites his lip.

“I suppose, he… I hurt my foot the first time I saw him and the next time he put something on it to heal it, so he seems… nice?” He hadn’t showed up last night. Patrick would be lying if he said he hadn’t felt disappointed. 

“Okay, do you think he’ll show up tonight?” Patrick shrugs. “Well, we’ll give it a try. See how far we can get. I’m going to need you there with me, though.”

 

“His name’s Pete, yeah?” 

“Yes.” Felix has been grilling Patrick about this all day, wanting every tiny detail of their interactions carefully explained to him. 

“And why does that bother you?” Patrick frowns.

“It doesn’t, I didn’t say it does…”

“I can tell it does.” 

“It doesn’t! Why would it bother me? It’s just a name.”

“Your husband died.” Anger flares in Patrick’s gut, spilling over and pouring into him. He spent so long learning to keep it locked away, he closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, taking a deep breath before growling, low and as threatening as he can, doing his best to not let instinct kick in.

“Don’t talk to me about that. Ever again. Or I won’t help you.” He pushes it down, out of the way, stores it back in the bottle he keeps at the back of his mind. He can feel his own heart. 

Patrick storms away, back down to the one place where he can be alone for now. 

 

The thing is, John was wrong. Patrick never learned to live past it, he merely learned to ignore it. The canyon he carved out inside of himself was always in his back, he’d never walked over it, merely turned away. He sits by the river trying to remember what it felt like before but the truth he can barely admit to himself is that he can’t even remember what his laugh sounded like. Soon it’ll be his voice, then his scent and one by one it will all disappear. Maybe that’s a good thing, there’s a reason for it, after all, we need to forget to move on. 

But here, here he can’t. Here he’s not so sure of anything, the conclusion he’d come to for himself all those years ago suddenly not seeming so logical anymore as the world seems to be working against him here. Everything he believed is being questioned, everything. And if mermen are real, then what else is? 

He looks up when he hears a ripple breaking through the slow flow of the water, only to see big, amber eyes he knows  _ so well _ gazing up at him. Pete - surely, that’s not his real name, surely it must be something else but that’s what it sounds like to Patrick’s ears - cocks his head and swims a little closer. To his surprise, Pete lifts his hands to grasp his own, wet thumbs slowly stroking over the backs of his palms. It feels odd. 

“Do you understand me?” He asks, desperate for the comfort. Pete’s mouth twists into something contemplative.

“Maybe you do, I’ve never heard your language, after all. Maybe it’s the same.” He beckons Patrick into the water, but he shakes his head, the last thing he wants to do right now is sink into that river. To his surprise, Pete pushes himself out. Not like last time, not up to his waist, but all the way, revealing… revealing a pair of legs, long, proportionally longer than any he’s seen before, and muscly. the same webbing that’s between his fingers hangs loosely between them, enough of it for him to be able to walk. His feet are the oddest part of him, long, webbed toes sprawling out on the forest floor. He sits down next to Patrick, close enough to pet his hair. Patrick isn’t sure what to make of it, evidently his best attempt at comforting. He leans into it, grateful for the attempt. It’s odd, in a way, that of all the people in this world, it’s the fish-man that makes him feel… understood.

“I wish I could understand you, too.” Pete pulls away just enough to be able to look at him, something hopeful dancing behind amber eyes. He puts a hand to his lips and moves it towards Patrick again and again and again. Like he’s trying to speak. Patrick copies him.

“Speak?” He sees his lips forming the word  _ speak _ . Patrick pats the ground, standing up himself but moving his hands towards the floor. “Wait,” he does it again, “wait.”

“Wait,” Pete mouths back. 

Felix is eating a can of beans when Patrick finds him.

“Hey, sorry for-”

“Never mind, it’s whatever, he’s over here.” 

He tells Felix to talk quietly as they scramble back through the trees, to the spot they were just at. But when they get there, it’s empty.

“I… don’t understand,” Patrick flusters, “he was just-”

“There.” he looks out over the river where Felix is pointing.

Sure enough, it’s Pete. But not alone.

“Has this happened before?” he asks as they watch the four come closer. 

“No.” Felix carefully approaches the water, hands raised the way Patrick told him. He watches carefully as Pete does the same, the people he brought with him do the same. Felix points at himself.

“Felix.” Pete nods once. 

“Right, let’s do this,” Patrick hears Felix mutter and before he knows it, the guy is taking his clothes off, down to his underwear, and jumping in the water. 

“What are you doing?”   
“If I’m gonna try to communicate with them I’ll have to figure out their language, won’t I? Are you coming in or what?” For a moment, Patrick hesitates before seeing amber eyes watching him closely. He strips and joins Felix, cursing himself for all of this. He introduces himself to the other three before turning back to Pete, who’s still watching him They’re not in danger as long as he’s around, he’s sure of it. 

Felix puts an arm around Patrick’s shoulders, pulling him in and indicating both of them.

“Humans.” The merman to the far left - older than Pete, Patrick thinks, though he can’t be sure, squints at them. Felix then points at himself, “human” and at Patrick “human” before indicating both of them “humans”. There’s a moment’s pause before all four of them disappear below the surface. Felix frowns.

“We’re supposed to follow,” Patrick explains, “so we can talk.”

He just wishes they could see as well as hear, though he imagines Dolby would orgasm if they figured out the clarity of surround sound underwater. It’s hard to tell which one is speaking, though he presumes it’s right to left, with Pete introducing himself first, then the first female, a name that sounds like “Anna”, the second female he decides is “Lea” and the older male, “Ian”. These, obviously, are not their names, not truly, they don’t even sound like that, but it’s the best he can come up with. Once back over water, Felix explains it’s, in fact, closer to something like Eacht, Aenia, Mynga and Wayon but Patrick’s not the linguist here and he thinks Pete, Anna, Lea and Ian will forgive him for his mispronunciations. 

“I’m relieved they seem to have developed a larynx similar to ours otherwise we’d have to find a different form of language.”

“Different form of language?”   
“Yeah, take gorillas, they have developed a concept of language but don’t have the larynx to speak, so we use sign language to communicate with them. Or… Arrival, you know, the movie, Arrival where they have to use writing to communicate rather than speech? Language can be… very hard.” 

It seems it, the way they keep submerging and emerging in an attempt to find a form of communication that works for both of them. Patrick hasn’t even asked how they’re going to tackle the actual language yet, he suspects Felix is doing this one step at a time. 

“It would be easier if I could… see,” he remarks, “though I think they’re very sonar themselves, not gesticulating or emoting as much as we do through our bodies when we talk.”

“But Pete and I have done nothing but so far.”

“Yes because there was no other option. I think their verbal and non-verbal communication is very separate, simply because they often can’t see, low light or distance or whatever reason. Hearing is more important underwater, more reliable.”

After two hours, it seemed like more to Patrick, Felix declares they’re done for the night and leaves with the greeting. The merpeople swim away, leaving them to their own devices, but as Patrick turns to climb back out of the water, he feels something brush his leg. 

“Felix,” he calls out as loud as he dares, “you go ahead, I’ll follow in a bit.” Felix frowns at him, looks over the river and hesitates before nodding. Patrick waits for him to disappear before turning back. Pete is waiting for him. 

“What is it?” There’s a smirk on his face, it should make patrick uneasy, would have done a week ago, but now it excites him.

“What?” 

To his surprise

And shock

Pete pulls him in.

At first, something close to terror grips him, warning him not to venture further into the river, past where he can stand, but he feels Pete’s hand on his back and one on his belly, steadying him. 

“This is really not good,” Patrick mutters, but Pete’s looking him right in the eye, and the glint in his own makes Patrick’s heart speed up because it’s been so very long since he’s seen that childish smile and the mischievous stare. 

Pete turns his back to him, taking hold of Patrick’s hands and placing them on his shoulders and he knows what he’s supposed to do before it happens.

There’s a thrill to it, swimming through the Madre at this speed, the night shooting past them, Pete is underwater but close enough to the surface for Patrick to be above it. 

He remembers back when they moved, that little village in the middle of nowhere where he arrived with nothing and left with everything. He’d got bored one day, stolen a horse, well… borrowed. Unfortunately for him, the farmer didn’t see it that way. Fortunately for him, the farmer’s son found the situation rather amusing. He’d take Patrick out riding sometimes after that. Truth was, Patrick didn’t really know how to ride until Pete taught him. After that, he’d never wanted to get off a horse again. It had been a while now.

Pete comes to a sudden halt for seemingly no reason and it takes Patrick a while to realise why. Slowly, they approach the waterfall where Pete loosens Patrick’s grip on his shoulders and guides his hands to the rocks, which he takes to mean he should climb. 

He’s never exactly been a good climber, not that he’s ever done it seriously, just the usual trees and playground contraptions he used to play on as a kid. But if the fish-man can do it, so can he. 

It’s not a tall waterfall, they’re at the top in a few minutes and Patrick settles down on the ledge, not sure if this is the end of the journey but not angry if he catches a bit of a break, either. Thankfully, Pete settles next to him and points ahead of them.

Patrick’s heart stops.

Over the canopy of the trees, the first rays of pink light bleed through the clouds. There’s a serenity surrounding the forest he hasn’t seen before, the insects sound like a song from up here. It seems birds are the same all over the world, already flying before the sun has risen, except here they aren’t brown and black, they’re orange and red and yellow, blue and green and the most fabulous mix of colours imaginable. Patrick leans back onto his elbows and watches as the sun paints the sky like a canvas, creeping up on them from behind the mighty trees and he reminds himself that sometimes he should keep an open mind. 

Pete’s eyes burn gold in the sunrise, the colours of his skin dancing in the natural light in ways Patrick hasn’t seen before. His entire body is a sculpture, sleek and elegant, perfectly carved out by the flow of the river. He’s not even thinking when he raises a hand to trace the patterns, making Pete flinch in surprise. In return, he reaches out to stroke through Patrick’s hair, something obviously alien to him. To him, Patrick is the strange one. With his tiny eyes and stubby legs, his hairy body, his loud voice. 

He’s not sure why they were given a second chance, but he’ll take it gladly. It feels natural when he leans his head on Pete and closes his eyes, feeling rather than hearing the satisfied hum deep within him.

  
  


Nobody asks where he’s been when he eventually gets back, all too busy listening to Felix to spare him a second thought. He’s glad of it, really. Patrick came here as a photographer not as part of their science experiment and he’s tired of the questions. 

They’re asking all the wrong ones. Too busy making them fit into what they know - language, science, sociology - to start at the most basic level. Patrick’s been more successful at that than any of them. Language, science and sociology come after sincerity. 

“I think there’s some Spanish, Aymaran and Uru influences to how they speak,” Felix explains, “which suggests they’ve been in contact with the locals as well as here and in Peru, who, of course, nobody has thought to ask, as usual. But I’ll get onto that as soon as I know who to approach. I do believe that, thankfully, they have a similar concept of vocabulary and grammar as us, meaning it’s all pretty linear and like learning another human language.”

“Is there any other kind of language?” Jane asks.

“Sure. Animals, for instances. Machines. Hell, you could invent a form of communication on the spot and as long as somebody else gets it, it’s language.” 

“Right…”

“Thing is, I only have… three days until we have to move on, right?” 

“Right.”

“What?!” Patrick is suddenly paying attention to the conversation. People are suddenly paying attention to Patrick. 

“The armed forces will be here in three days. If we’ve left by then, it won’t be as easy for them to find where we’re guessing the colony is, which is about 100 yards up the river.” John explains.

“How do you know that?”

“Because,” Hannah say, “some of us have actually been working here.” 

Patrick glares at her.

“Look-”

“You’re here as a photographer, Patrick. We need those pictures.”

“Look, without me, you’d be nowhere. I’ve been in contact with them more than any of you, they  _ trust _ me more than any of you! Without me you might not even have found them yet!” 

“Or we might have. Either way, we need you to do your job.” 

Patrick will. Out of spite, he will. And then he’ll be free.

 

He resents Felix being there, wishes it were just them. The merpeople have come as a pair this time, though Patrick wants the photos before they go in. The moment he spots it, Pete eyes the camera wearily and Patrick does his best to give him a reassuring smile. Carefully, he swims towards the riverbank. For once, it’s Patrick’s turn to beckon him on land. Pete hesitates. 

“Please.” he whispers, “please, come on.”

Lea watches as Pete climbs out and walks towards them, once again leaving Felix speechless. He cocks his head at the camera and squints in displeasure, rubbing his eyes already.

“No flash.” Patrick promises, letting it click up but pushing it back down to try and let him know what he means.

Pete shakes his head at it. “No flash. Promise.” 

He makes Pete stand near the light Felix is holding, they#ll have to work with what they have. His camera is good enough to capture decent low-light photos, he just hopes Pete will be still for long enough.

He holds onto Pete’s shoulders for a few seconds, hoping he’s getting the message of  _ don’t move _ across, he nods, seemingly understanding. 

The first photo is face-on, full-body. Obviously it could be better in the ideal light, but for what he has, it will do. 

He turns his own body, only to point at Pete, who copies him. But when he turns back, camera raised to his face, so does Pete. 

“No, turn…” he turns back, wanting for Pete to copy him. Which he does. Only to turn back when Patrick does. When Patrick shakes his head, Pete cocks his and raises his arms in question. 

To Patrick’s surprise, felix starts chuckling. Low, little giggles that shake his body and the light with it.

“What?”

“Just… you two, turning back and forth and bickering like an old married couple.” For a second, Patrick can feel himself teetering. Then, a laugh cracks through his body. It bubbles in his chest, then fills his throat and mouth and before he knows it, he can feel it all over, overwhelming him. Pete is frowning, glancing back and forth between them, head cocked and mouth moving as though he’s speaking. This, for some reason, makes Felix laugh harder until he’s doubled over, eyes creased with joy spilling out of him and Patrick finds it nothing short of infectious. 

Both of them turn in shock when a wailing noise escapes Pete. At first Patrick thinks he’s in pain simply from the sound of it and the way his body is bent over, but then he sees his face.

He’s laughing. 

And before he knows it, they all are. Him, Pete, Felix, even Ian, still in the water, watching them. Once he’s collected himself, Pete turns to his side, away, his other side, and Patrick gets his photos. Even the close-up, the details of his face, his eyes, his the patterns on his skin, the webbing on his legs. When he’s done, he cocks his head and offers the camera to Pete but he shakes his head, tapping his temple before tracing Patrick’s face with his fingers. The cool of them comes as a relief. Patrick can’t help but smile. He’s missed him.

 

“You’re right, you know,” Felix says to him a few hours later as they’re heading back to camp, “about what you said earlier. The way you manage to communicate with… Pete you call him, right? It’s extraordinary.” Patrick smiles at him, somewhat grateful that his contribution is finally being appreciated. “You know, I could do with somebody like you on my team. You’re patient and listen and really try to understand rather than force your rules on them. The fact that you developed a greeting in the first place is remarkable.” 

“Thanks…” he murmurs, unsure of what to say, “dunno, I think it’s just Pete. We click, kinda.”

“Yeah, I get it. Sometimes it just works and other times, well… I’m not doing too great this time round, I have to admit.” Patrick frowns at him, confused because as far as he can tell, Felix has managed to find at least a mutual basis, using spoken language to an extent, even short sentences and they seem to understand and he seems to understand them.

“What are you talking about? It’s going well, isn’t it? I mean, it’s only been, what, three days? I’m impressed, for sure. And I think, for what it’s worth, you’re gonna get us further than that lot over there will.” 

“Thanks.” Felix bites his lip, hiding a little smile. “It’s hard to fit in with other scientists sometimes. I don’t work with numbers and for them that’s… they on’t get it.”

“I know the feeling. Photographer surrounded by journalists. All I really wanna do is my own thing but that doesn’t pay the bills, yanno?”

“I get that. All I wanna do is move back to Korea, really. I mean, I never lived there, but it feels more like home than Washington. Little house somewhere by the coast. In the east, I think, near Busan.” 

“Yeah, that sounds nice. When my parents moved us out of Chicago and to this little town down in southern Illinois, I sulked for weeks. Turns out it was the best home I ever had, found everything I needed there.” Felix smiles.

“After this, let’s pitch together. We can roomie somewhere in the mountains.” That idea sounds kinda nice, he’s not gonna lie.

“Or by the Korean coast.” 

For Patrick, the kiss comes out of nowhere. For a second, he lets it happen, but then he freezes, when it feels a little too strange and unfamiliar. Felix breaks away immediately.

“Sorry, I-”

“It’s okay.”

“No, I’m… sorry. Really, that was… inappropriate.” Patrick wants to tell him it wasn’t, but his mere reaction proves that to be a lie. What is true is that Felix isn’t the problem. It’s the absence of Pete.

“Goodnight, Patrick.” He’s is gone before Patrick can answer. 

  
  


He’s awoken before dawn. Patrick takes a moment to remember where he is, lost somewhere at home in his dreams, a place he hasn’t been in a long time. It’s Miguel shaking him.

“Buddy, we’ve gotta go, they’ll be here any moment.” The world blinks into existence.

“Wha-”

“Come on, we’re almost packed, get your stuff.” 

“No, what do you mean?” He sits up, slowly remembering the details of the last three weeks.

“They’re early, come on, we gotta go.” Patrick reluctantly crawls out of his tent only to find the camp that’s become so familiar dismantled, wrapped up in boxes and canvas. 

“We’re getting picked up by the rangers further down the river but the walk will take us a while, so best leave as soon as possible,” John explains without so much as a  _ Good Morning _ . 

From a few metres away, Felix gives him a sympathetic smile, his unfinished research filed away in his rucksack. He looks resigned, annoyed. Patrick thinks that, out of everyone, he probably understands best. 

“I’m not leaving.”

“You don’t have much of a choice, do you? Come on, Patrick, go-time.” When he makes no move to pack up, John drops his voice to something softer. “Look, we’re all frustrated, I know it sucks. We’ll figure something out as soon as we can. But for now we need to fuck off as quickly and quietly as possible.” Patrick shakes his head.

“Kid, look-”

“Let him say goodbye, John.” Felix has appeared beside the old man, looking at Patrick softly, “he’s got to know them better than any of us. Let him say goodbye.” 

With a raised brow and a resigned expression, John musters him carefully. Then, defeated, he sighs.

“Alright. Alright, you can go. We’ll wait as long as we can, I’ll get everybody to help pack your stuff. But I can’t give you more than half an hour, kid.” Patrick’s jaw clenches, but he nods, throwing another glance at Felix before heading off.

 

He’s stripped and in the water as quickly as possible, swimming back and forth and causing a commotion enough to hopefully call them out of where they sleep.

Sure enough, within five minutes, one of them emerges, Anna he thinks, watching him for a few seconds before disappearing again. And moments later, he sees him. He doesn’t think twice before swimming towards him, into the depth that makes Pete’s eyes widen and meet him in the middle, gripping onto him before he can float away. He cocks his head questioningly and all Patrick can do is cup his face gently, his thumbs stroking Pete’s cheekbones.

“I don’t wanna leave,” he whispers, “I’m not gonna leave.” He doesn’t know how or why, but somehow Pete knows, he knows he knows.

“I can’t throw you away again…” Pete just shakes his head, something gentle dancing in those amber eyes. “I’m not letting you go again, Pete.” A cool finger presses to his lips, quietening him. Patrick puts a hand to his chest, just above his heart, and the other on Pete’s, where he can feel the steady thump of one so like his own. Pete drops his forehead against his own and Patrick looks down, watching the moon dance on the surface and creating stars below. He’ll stay. This is close to home. 

He’s already made that decision when, with a sigh, Pete gently but decisively pushes him away, holding him at arm’s length and with his free hand, pointing to his mouth. 

“Speak?” Patrick asks.

Pete points at Patrick, then touches his fingers to his lips again.

“Me speak?”

He shakes his head, repeats the movement but puts his hand to his chest, too. 

It clicks.

“You think I should go? With Felix?” He copies the signs, cocks his head to show it’s a question and this time, Pete nods.

“No, I don’t…” he nods again. “Pete, I…” Pete lifts his hand to Patrick’s hair, stroking through it, Patrick closes his eyes, leans against it, feeling it against his head. He flinches as he feels a tug and looks up to see Pete holding a lock of it, surprised by how gentle he must have been to remove so much so easily. Through the tears in his eyes, Patrick can find it in him to smile. 

The cool hand moves to touch his chest, curling up against it before retracting and touching Pete’s own. 

“Yeah,” Patrick nods, “yeah. You have it.” 

There’s a sadness in Pete’s eyes, he’s sure of it, as he raises his hands, palms facing Patrick, the lock of dark blonde hair trapped between his thumb and index finger. Fighting back the tears, Patrick does the same, holding his gaze for a few seconds and hoping, just hoping that maybe he’ll change his mind. 

But then, as suddenly as he’d appeared on the first night, Pete’s gone, with nothing but the ripple of the water betraying that he was ever there to begin with.

 

Some people are pit-stops. They take their time and fix ups up before moving on with their lives, a short but important gift of chance. 

Malek and his team collect enough evidence to start a program, researching merpeople and developing new diplomatic ties. It turns out there are dozens of ethnicities, same as humans. The short, tubby merpeople of the polar seas, the large, stocky ones of the Atlantic and Pacific (not quite the same but similarly built), the shorter, leaner ones along the eastern coast of Asia, there was a large school of them around the Japanese islands and, of course, the sweet water types, countless in numbers, different on every continent, sometimes in every region of a continent. The pale, stocky russian merfolk, the slimmer Danuvian kind, huge, strong merpeople along the Nile and, of course, the tall, slim ones of the Amazon. They were under protection, not as wildlife, but as another form of human, with their own rights. It took years to convince military operations to stay out of it but, for the most part, they were successful.

Miguel moved to New York. There was no reason for that other than his marriage to Hannah. They lived in the city, in a nice apartment, even had a kid. Patrick sent them a card every Christmas.

Patrick had taken his time with Pete’s advice. In truth, he didn’t feel he was ready to fully let go. The guilt of the day still weighing him down, but maybe just maybe, he’d been given the chance at redemption for a reason.

He knew, realistically, the merman had never been the man he’d fallen in love with stealing horses. He knew that. But sometimes, you’ve gotta say  _ fuck you _ to realism. 

They’ve not moved to the Korean coast yet, partly because they barely have the money for a single cross-country flight and partly because Patrick can speak next to no Korean. They do have their own place, though. Well, it’s rented, but it’s home. For now, anyway. Right in the middle of Chicago, well, Roscoe Village, which is pretty central. They’ve got a cat and a few fish and, surprisingly, the cat doesn’t eat the fish. Felix works as a teacher at the Middle School a few blocks away. Some would argue the blurry photo of the top of a merman’s head was the best thing to come out of Bolivia for Patrick. He’d disagree. He can’t deny the traction it’s brought him, though, social media accounts booming, he can afford to only shoot for the papers on occasion, the rest of the time, it’s fashion shoots, private inquiries, collaborations or, simply, for his own pleasure.

Once a week, they go out for dinner, a new place every week, though Felix cooks so well, Patrick would be just as happy if they stayed in every night. That might be the most important thing in all of this - Patrick, finally, can say he’s happy.

On the bookshelf, just over their TV, there sits a picture frame with three photos.

The first is of the two of them, a sloppy selfie taken in front of the lake, Felix is sticking his tongue out and Patrick looks  _ pissed _ . But it’s real. They love it.

The second is Patrick’s wedding day. Him in a, retrospectively, awful tan suit. Pete in white. He might still be the most beautiful man he ever laid eyes on. Felix doesn’t mind, he’s agreed with Patrick on that statement. Patrick misses him. Terribly. Almost every day and some days more than others. But now, he owns it. It’s not repressed in anger or frustration. It’s a part of him. It always will be because he always will be. Love is stretchy. No matter who he loves or how much, Pete will always be there. 

The third is barely recognisable from a distance, mainly because it doesn’t seem real unless you know what’s on it. Patrick never handed this one to the scientists or Miguel. It was an accident, really, a blurred shot of a creature, half human, but not quite, standing on land beside a seemingly floating lantern, twisted into an odd shape, though that might be the blur, and if you look closely, you can see the laughter in his eyes and the smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos would b rad, you can tell me how weird i am on tumblr (scmi-sweet, look, i know how to create links but i cannot be arsed)


End file.
